Free Family by Micol Ostow Page A

there are rhythms. there is a steadiness to be found.
    namely, there are chores.
    every day of every week, chores. we divide the tasks amongst ourselves, the family .
    some days i am sent, usually with shelly, to forage for food.
    foraging can be okay because i like to ride in the pickup, like to feel the smooth, sturdy motion of rubber tires beneath me, to watch the horizon race along against my sight line,
    just forever out of reach,
    just forever limitless.
    i like to soak, to simmer, in the air outside the ranch, which is somehow, sometimes, crisper, brighter, cleaner.
    more.
    even when we are knee-deep in day-old produce.
    i like to be with my sister, shelly.
    i like to provide for my
    family.
    still, the truth is:
    shelly is a lot.
    she is. a lot . to take.
    and in the smooth, sturdy safe house of the pickup, there is only me to take her.
    in those moments, we have no buffer between us, she and i.
    how lucky it is, then, that we are sisters. that we are so close we are nearly one person, nearly fit neatly into one set of skin, our thoughts occurring almost in tandem.
    shelly is my inside-out. my mirror-me. my shadowself. she wears her fault lines on the outside, trophies pinned to the heavy cloak of her self.
    whereas everything, every last bit of me, all of my hollow places—they are wrapped up tightly and stuffed down inside.
    shelly is the inner voice that i dare not allow to speak aloud. She is fire, shattered glass, and shards of ice. she is her own orbit, her own atmosphere. her own half-life.
    shelly and mirror-mel
    —
    they wear their scar tissue like bright, shiny ribbons. like prizes.
    they embrace their fractures, swallow their chaos whole.
    while i am merely
    broken.
    shelly has opinions about everything. but shelly’s everything is quite specific; usually her opinions, her points of reference—usually they snake their way back to Henry. always Henry.
    and even though i get it, i really do
    <—Henry is always; sometimes just the suggestion of Henry awake, alive in my mind fills me up so i think i could die for Him just from thinking about it—>
    even though i get it , it is a lot.
    today, now, in the cramped cab of the pickup, it is almost too much. the glaze that falls over her eyes and the rote movement of her lips, they unsettle me, make me think of painted dolls, of static.
    of blankness.
    it is… upsetting. shelly is my inside-out, my positive charge.
    but today, shelly has hollow places. so many hollow places.
    and today, she shows them to me.
    today, her
    fault lines
    are beginning
    to
    crack.

mothers
    i cannot not ask.
    i need to know what it is that has shelly so blank, so fully distracted. she is cracking, crumbling, and there should be no secrets among family , i reason. not our family.
    so. i venture:
    “what is it?”
    shelly’s cheeks flush, pink bloom creeping up toward her temples like a rash, but her gaze doesn’t leave the road. “you can tell?”
    “of course.”
    of course . of course i can. she is me. she is my shadow-self. i know .
    “it’s—” she falters, pressing her lips together until they are little more than a thin white line. her cheekbones set into sharp angles, hollow and haunted.
    i place a hand against her knee, reassuring her. she can say anything to me, i remind her. she is me.
    she nods, almost to herself, winds her arms and runs the steering wheel all the way to the right, driving us off to the side of the road, to a soft shoulder, where we finally settle.
    the engine sputters and the truck falls silent.
    she turns to me, her face a jigsaw puzzle that’s been forced together incorrectly, tabs jutting from too-tight cutouts.
    “i’m going to have a baby.”
    there is a hitch, a hiccup, and a trapdoor opens at the base of my stomach.
    she is pregnant.
    shelly is pregnant .
    i soar downward, into the vortex where the floor has given way beneath me.
    this. is incomprehensible.
    i am overwhelmed.
    overjoyed.
    shelly is pregnant.
    i am